Q: Is corporate earnings growth supposed to resume its strength next year?

A: Investors may be disappointed with corporate profit in the third quarter, but at least they have 2013 to look forward to.

Earnings growth in the third quarter has been nothing to get excited about. Growth of the companies in the Standard & Poor's 500 has come in at just 2.4%, just barely above the 2.3% earnings growth in the second quarter of 2012.

Investors, though, are looking for better things over the next few quarters and year. For the current quarter (the fourth quarter) investors are expecting 5.1% earnings growth from companies in the S&P 500.

If these forecasts are right, that would be the best rate of growth since the first quarter of 2012, when earnings grew more than 7%.

All told, analysts are expecting earnings reported by S&P 500 companies to grow by 10.1% in 2013. That would be a welcome return of growth for companies.

But there's growing fear that the positive views for earnings growth next year are too optimistic.

Companies during the third quarter came in short on revenue, and a large percentage of companies were bearish on upcoming quarters.

Investors will want to see some signs of growth or expansion, or it's very likely that estimates for the fourth quarter and 2013 could be cut.